The Boggart
by Jade Eclipse
Summary: Everyone's afraid of something...


The Boggart  
  
Summary: Everyone's afraid of something...  
  
Disclaimer: There's this really weird thing about the Harry Potter franchise—A.) It belongs to J.K. Rowling. B.) J.K. Rowling is not me. Go figure.  
  
This is what happens when you let me play around with character's fears. I'm fascinated with boggarts, so I decided to face all the characters with them, one by one. All different characters from all the walks of the HP universe. This fic will be anywhere from five chapters to twenty, depending upon how it's received and whether or not inspiration decides to cooperate with me.  
  
Well then. On to my first fic that has more than one chapter!!! (That sounded so pathetic.)  
  
By the way, this fist chapter is extremely unusual. No dialogue, it is more or less a textbook point of view on boggarts. Next chapter will also be weird, but then I should get to the characters. Go me.  
  
That last part was sarcasm.  
  
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Chapter 1: The Art of Fear  
  
Scientifically, boggarts are extremely difficult to explain. After all, science would have quite a bit of trouble explaining most of the events at Hogwarts, School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. They couldn't explain about the silvery, luminescent ghosts that traipsed through the halls; they couldn't explain the genetics that allow a dragon to breathe fire, or how a dementor could tear your soul out from your throat, and they would have a hell of a time examining how Blast-Ended Skrewts were possible (though, most people would be more concerned about why they were possible). Any Muggle scientist would be baffled by the broomsticks that flew, the pictures that thought for themselves, and all the other hidden impossibilities that had somehow managed to go ignored by the general (or, at least, the non-wizard/witch) population.  
  
In plain, blunt truth, science had no purpose mixing with magic. That might have had something to do with the reason that electronics failed to work in an area as filled with magic as Hogwarts. It was magic's way of keeping two unmixables from combining and, in other words, mixing. Of course, the fact that watches seem to work fine within the halls of Hogwarts will have to go unmentioned for the time being.  
  
Furthermore, science was often tested in the presence of magic. Nicholas Flamel had once had a residence in a Muggle town, and had been forced to offer an awkward explanation as to why he had been paying taxes from that building for one hundred and fifty years. Since then, he found it better to move away from the prying eyes of those who were forced to accommodate with only science and not with magic.  
  
But because of all this, Muggles were often considered to be stupid. This, of course, was not true. They were every bit as intelligent as a wizard or witch, but the magic world had an unfortunate tendency to show them in a narrow-minded and one-dimensional viewpoint. They understood more than most people would care to give them credit for. Still, their science could not define the other side of the world.  
  
Science can't explain a boggart. In perspective, neither can magic. How can something reach inside your head, snatch up your worst fear from the delicate spider-web threads of your thoughts, and reveal it to you-- and whoever else who happened to see? Science was set up to explain matters with reasoning. Magic is the power that we mortals were never meant to understand.  
  
From either side of the spectrum, the boggart is unusual. No one ever faced it to find they feared absolutely nothing. It always was given a form to take on, from something lethal to some frivolous or harmless fear. To be completely unafraid is reputed to be synonymous to being an absolutely ignorant moron.  
  
Everyone is afraid of something.  
  
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I told you it was a little weird. And it turned out more sarcastic than I intended. shrug But really, the watch thing bugs me for some stupid reason... Don't ask. I stress the small stuff.  
  
But I had fun with that.  
  
Care to donate a review? I'm starting to find that in order to get any reviews under the ever-growing HP section, you have to post a lot of chapters. Next one should be up soon.  
  
By the way, it took me an eternity to get this to post right. Gah.  
  
Jade 


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